CLEVELAND, Ohio - A roomful of the region's smartest and most idealistic environmental visionaries spent Tuesday talking about how far the Cuyahoga River has come since it caught fire in 1969, and how much longer it will take until it becomes a clean and healthy waterway.

Many of the nearly 200 people in the room at Stillwater Place, located on the grounds of the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, spoke excitedly about a number of restoration projects underway, and problems along the 100-mile long river that still need to be addressed.

One of the biggest problems is the national image of the river as an oily, polluted cesspool that periodically catches on fire, said Jane Goodman, executive director of Cuyahoga River Restoration, which sponsored the symposium, Cuyahoga River: Focus on the Future.

"This river should be as cool as the Rock Hall and everything else that people think is cool about Cleveland," Goodman said.

Goodman was followed by Elaine Marsh, conservation director of Friends of the Crooked River, who described parts of the Cuyahoga as, "drop dead gorgeous. You would think you're in Ontario."

Longtime river conservationist Jim White, now the director of sustainable programs at the Port of Cleveland, cited last month's discovery of a young walleye in the Cuyahoga River as new cause for excitement.

"People need to embrace that idea to encourage habitat change efforts," White said. "How can we do more to get to that position?"

In the environmental community, that message already has started to be heard, White said.

"Forty-five years after the fire, this river is becoming more known for its recovery than the fire," White said.

Other takeaways from the all-day symposium:

Brad McBride, owner of Burning River Adventures canoe and kayak rentals in Cuyahoga Falls, said he grew up beside the river and has seen some amazing changes over the years. "We've gone from a smelly, brown river to a clean one with fish and wildlife," he said. "I've seen more people on the river this year than I have in the past 20 years."

The Euclid Creek/Wildwood reclamation project has already shown results, said Claire Posius. A river otter was seen at the metropark recently, and a pink salmon was found earlier this year in the Euclid Creek, she said.

Not all of the news was good. Cathi Lehn, coordinator's of Sustainable Cleveland, cited a study by the Alliance for the Great Lakes that found the beaches of Northeast Ohio - and specifically Cuyahoga County - had the largest amount of plastic cigar tips rubble than anywhere else in the Great Lakes region. Plastic cigar tips accounted for 37 percent of the total trash collected on the Ohio beaches, the study found.

A primary goal of the Friends of the Crooked River and many others in attendance was the eventual removal of all dams on the Cuyahoga. Four have already been removed: two in Cuyahoga Falls, and others in Kent and Munroe Falls. Two remain: the Brecksville Dam below Ohio 82, which shouldn't be a problem, said Marsh. The last one is the Gorge Dam in Cuyahoga Falls, which would cost an estimated $72 million to disassemble and remove massive quantities of polluted sediment. "We can move forward on that," she said. "Many of our bridges cost $70 million to build. The removal of this dam would be a bridge to the future."